丘陵红壤开发的水土资源保护及农业产业化经营模式

以湖南省桃源县为例,针对目前丘陵红壤开发存在的主要问题,在探明季节性干旱成因和发生规律、水资源合理调蓄利用依据的基础上,提出了红壤丘陵区抗御季节性干旱的水分管理对策和主要措施;通过不同经营模式的水土资源动态观测、分析,提出了红壤丘陵区土壤允许流失值应≤200 t·km-2·a-1、相应的降水径流系数<0.25 等水土资源协调发展的关键技术指标,并在丘陵红壤坡地上建立了土壤侵蚀模数<100 t·km-2·a-1 的“土壤-水分-生物”资源互利型的高效利用模式。同时,以市场为导向,优化产业结构为中心,应用上述研究成果,建立了茶叶、苎麻、果业、庭园高效生态农业等四大科技先导型的产业化规模经营体系,为我国红壤丘陵区的农业产业化开发提供实用模式与示范样板。     

科学施肥与农业生产可持续发展

化肥的施用，实现了农业的增产，一百多年来为解决中国人民的温饱问题做出了重大贡献。肥料仍然是粮食安全的重要保障。但不合理施用化肥造成环境污染和食品安全问题，使人们产生了对化肥的错误认识。文章认为必须树立起科学施肥的观念，努力提高化肥利用率，形成有机、无机肥料合理配合使用的格局，促进农业生产可持续发展。此外，还认为应加强肥料市场管理，使之有法可依，并能迎接入世的挑战。     

城市协调发展理论与对策的探讨

本文对城市科技、经济、社会、环境协调发展结构、功能、机理、机制及对策进行了探讨.     

基于SPSS的苏北地区可持续发展能力空间分异研究

以区域可持续发展能力建设为切入点,结合苏北地区的实际,建立适合该地区的可持续发展能力评价指标体系,然后运用SPSS软件的因子分析和聚类分析的方法,对苏北地区可持续发展能力进行综合评价。结果表明,区内各县市可持续发展能力差异较大,但其空间分异呈现出某些特征:经济可持续发展能力呈现由地区东南部向中间递减的“一”字型空间格局;资源环境可持续发展能力呈现由地区中部分别向东、向西递减的“凸”字型空间格局;社会可持续发展能力呈“M”字型空间格局;综合可持续发展能力呈“H”字型空间格局;以中心城市为核心,可持续发展能力向周边呈辐射状递减趋势。根据这些空间分异特征,提出了一些促进苏北地区可持续发展能力建设的建议。     

鱼类耳石元素指纹研究进展

耳石是沉积在真骨鱼类内耳中的一种矿物结构,其主要成分是碳酸盐.在鱼类的生活过程中,水环境中的化学元素经过代谢稳定地沉积在耳石上,由于生活水域化学环境的差异,鱼类耳石的元素组成或含量存在一定的差异,而使耳石上的元素指纹成为一种天然标志,记录了鱼类所经历的生态环境及其变化.耳石元素指纹研究主要包括同位素成分分析、锶钙比率研究(Sr/Ca)以及一些痕量元素分析等,这些可以用于鱼类种群识别、生活史研究、生活环境重建,以及高龄鱼的年龄鉴定,在鱼类生态学和渔业资源学研究中具有广泛的应用前景.参57     

Diet quality affects an attractive white plumage pattern in dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis)

Sexually selected traits that act as signals of quality often display some degree of condition dependence. In birds, condition dependence of ornamental plumage is often mediated by production costs related to acquisition or allocation of dietary resources. White plumage ornaments, however, have often been assumed to be inexpensive because their production requires neither pigment nor specialized feather structure. In male dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), the size of a white patch on the tail contributes to attractiveness and mating success. Using captive males, we examined the effects of diet quality on the size and brightness of the tail-white patch. After removing four tail feathers to induce replacement, we maintained subjects on a subsistence (low-protein) or enriched (high-protein) diet while induced feathers grew. Birds that received an enriched diet grew their feathers more quickly and grew larger, brighter white patches. Feather growth rate was positively correlated with the increase in the size of the tail-white patch, a relationship that was stronger in the subsistence diet group. However, within diet treatments, faster-grown feathers were slightly duller. Taken together, these results suggest that variation in diet quality may lead to condition-dependent expression of tail white and that condition dependence may be stronger in more stressful environments. We suggest a mechanism by which increased feather growth rate may lead to an increase in the size of the tail-white patch and discuss potential trade-offs between signal size and brightness.     

Female guppies shorten brood retention in response to predator cues

Predation risk influences the duration of offspring development in many species where embryos develop from externally shed eggs. Surprisingly, such predator-mediated effects on offspring development have rarely been explored in live-bearers. In this paper, we use the guppy (Poecilia reticulata), a live-bearing freshwater fish, to test whether the duration of brood retention (the time from mating to parturition) is influenced by experimental changes in the perceived level of predation. Because the swimming performance of female guppies is impaired during late pregnancy, we predicted that females would withhold broods for shorter periods when they are exposed to cues that signal a heightened risk of predation on adults rather than on juveniles. We therefore simulated increased risk of predation on adults by using a combination of pike-shaped models (resembling natural predators that prey on adult guppies) and ‘alarm substances’ derived from the skin extracts of adult conspecific females. Our results revealed that, under simulated predation risk, female guppies produced broods significantly more quickly than their counterparts assigned to a control group where predator cues were absent. A subsequent evaluation of offspring swimming performance revealed a significant positive association between neonate swimming speeds and the duration of brood retention, suggesting that by accelerating parturition, females may produce offspring with impaired locomotor skills. These findings, in conjunction with similar results from other live-bearing species, suggest that the conditions experienced by gestating females can generate significant variation in the timing of offspring development with potentially important implications for offspring fitness.     

Effects of Climate and Land-Use Change on Species Abundance in a Central European Bird Community

Abstract:  Although it is known that changes in land use and climate have an impact on ecological communities, it is unclear which of these factors is currently most important. We sought to determine the influence of land-use and climate alteration on changes in the abundance of Central European birds. We examined the impact of these factors by contrasting abundance changes of birds of different breeding habitat, latitudinal distribution, and migratory behavior. We examined data from the semiquantitative Breeding Bird Atlas of Lake Constance, which borders Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Changes in the regional abundance of the 159 coexisting bird species from 1980–1981 to 2000–2002 were influenced by all three factors. Farmland birds, species with northerly ranges, and long-distance migrants declined, and wetland birds and species with southerly ranges increased in abundance. A separate analysis of the two decades between 1980–1981 and 1990–1992 and between 1990–1992 and 2000–2002 showed that the impact of climate change increased significantly over time. Latitudinal distribution was not significant in the first decade and became the most significant predictor of abundance changes in the second decade. Although the spatial scale and temporal resolution of our study is limited, this is the first study that suggests that climate change has overtaken land-use modification in determining population trends of Central European birds.     

Assessment of Effectiveness of Protection Strategies in Tanzania Based on a Decade of Survey Data for Large Herbivores

Abstract:  Considerable controversy surrounds the effectiveness of strictly protected areas that prohibit consumptive resource use. For Tanzania we compared temporal changes in densities of large herbivores among heavily protected national parks and game reserves, partially protected game-controlled areas, and areas with little or no protection. Comparisons based on surveys conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s versus the late 1990s and early 2000s showed three consistent patterns across the country. First, significant declines in the densities of large herbivores between these two snapshots in time overwhelmingly outnumbered significant increases in all protection categories. Second, more species fared well (increased significantly or showed no significant change) in strictly protected national parks than in areas with partial or no protection and in heavily protected game reserves relative to areas with no protection. Third, significantly more species fared poorly (densities declined or were too low to detect a decline) than fared well in areas with partial or no protection. Our results show that although heavy protection was generally more effective in maintaining large herbivore populations than partial or no protection, continued long-term monitoring is needed in Tanzania to inform managers whether large herbivores are experiencing declining population trends even within heavily protected areas .